Friday, October 30, 2009

“A vote to the Congress is tantamount to a vote for the TDP, and a vote for the TDP is tantamount to a vote for the Congress.”

It is with this aggressive slogan the Lok Satta Party is plunging into the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation elections. The party will also make it clear to voters that failure to exercise their franchise will amount to silent endorsement of traditional parties, all of whom have let them down. The Lok Satta alone is committed to ushering in new politics in which the voter is empowered.

It may be recalled that certain traditional parties had tried to kill the infant Lok Satta Party in the 2009 general elections by maliciously propagating that a vote to the Lok Satta would be a wasted vote since it had no winning chances. After all, a party would win only when voters opted for it.

The Lok Satta Party is, therefore, focusing on rebutting the likely bad-mouthing to be indulged in by the traditional parties.

Unlike in a general election which involved the fate of a government, the voters in the GHMC election are concerned about their immediate problems like sanitation, drainage, water supply, traffic etc. The Lok Satta Party has come up with a credible and practicable agenda which envisages time-bound redressal of people’s grievances and all-round development of divisions by devolving powers, responsibilities and resources on division committees elected by people.

The party finalized its election campaign strategy at a meeting of the GHMC Committee and party workers who contested the general elections from the GHMC area. Dr. Jayaprakash Narayan, party President, was in the chair.

Briefing the media on the decisions taken at the meeting, party spokesmen Katari Srinivasa Rao and V. Laxman Balaji said the party aimed at bagging at least one-third of the total votes polled. The party candidates would dispel the image that a corporator is one who goes about in white dress and dark glasses, displaying his muscle power. They would make it plain to the people that a corporator is a public servant and not their master.

The party which has already announced its candidates for 78 seats came out with the names of candidates for six more divisions. They are: